Questions About Faith

People have been asking this question for thousands of years. Many Ancient Greek philosophers, for instance, rejected the existence of the gods. In our own time, scientific advances have explained much of what was once mysterious about the world.

And yet, humanity has never lost its sense of wonder. Who can look at a sky full of stars, a beautiful artwork, or a magnificent vista and not come away awed? Who can hold a baby and not marvel at the miracle of life?

It’s hard to manufacture wonder. Instead, it comes to us as something beyond us, a profound gift. The human drive for beauty likewise drives us to search for transcendence. Even staunch atheists are awed by the vastness of the universe and the intricacy of life. Humans are spiritual beings.

Humans are also moral beings. No two cultures, indeed, no two people, agree on every detail of moral minutiae, but we all believe that right and wrong exist and should exert some influence over the way we live our lives. When bad things happen, we know it’s not a sign that the world is functioning as it should—it’s a sign of a world gone wrong.

Where do these feelings come from? Are they mere accidents, a fluke of evolution? Or are they perhaps signposts placed within our souls to point us to a reality beyond ourselves?

Observation and deduction can only take us so far in uncovering the great mysteries of life. Though reason has a role in the question of God, it’s only one part of a greater whole. Ultimately, the question of God comes down to the degree to which we trust our hearts. Humans crave meaning. At the same time, we question if the universe has any meaning at all.

Well…does it? There are rational reasons to think so, but those leave an incomplete picture, lines without color. To color in the lines, we have to get to know God for ourselves. After all, God as a vague supernatural entity picked apart with the scalpel of logic is quite different from God as a loving Father manifested to the human heart by faith. If we want to know that God exists, we have experience God’s existence in the deep recesses of our souls.

Hence, the famous quote from the philosopher Blaise Pascal: “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.”

“Where does religion come from?” is a fascinating question, one with many possible answers.

Christians believe that people are religious because God made us that way. Each person has a sort of “God-consciousness.” We all have spiritual sensibilities. We’re drawn to love and beauty. We crave justice. And we yearn to be part of something bigger than ourselves.

Consider the following passage from the Bible. Here, the Apostle Paul speaks to a group of Athenian philosophers about the nature of God, quoting the Ancient Greek poets Epimenides and Aratus:

“The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things…so that they would search for God and perhaps fumble about for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we, too, are his offspring.’” (Acts 17:24-28, NRSV)

God has revealed himself to all people through the vastness and beauty of the physical universe, the moral convictions of conscience, and the spiritual impulses of our hearts. Christians call this “general revelation.” Religions came about as people pondered the mystery of the human existence and responded in wonder. All religions, therefore, reveal something true about reality.

Our conviction is that Jesus offers the truest picture of God’s character and nature. But that does not mean we think other religions are totally false. Every tradition contains truth and beauty. We value interfaith dialogue in order to foster mutual understanding and work together toward a more compassionate, peaceful world.

The human heart is wired for love. We’re made to love and to long for things that are true, beautiful, and good, to know and be known, to reify our love in our families, friendships, and communities.

In this way humanity reflects the image of its creator, for God, the Bible says, is love (1 John 4:8).

Christians have traditionally understood God as Trinity: a three-in-one unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As a community of persons in perfect union, God is, in his very essence, love. God does not simply have love; God is love. God does not simply have relationships; God is relationship.

How do we know this? The Bible teaches that, when God desired to bridge the gap between himself and humanity, God the Son became the man Jesus. Through Jesus we see that God is on the side of the poor and oppressed, that God is not indifferent to our pain, and that God is a friend who walks beside us through the ups and down of life.

One of the most persistent challenges to Christian belief, this question is more than mere philosophical speculation. It springs from the deep pain people feel during times of sickness, violence, and loss. Suffering is part of the human experience—bad things happen. It is a simple fact that humans make choices that cause each other pain and sorrow. But there are also natural disasters and tragedies. We grieve suffering wherever we encounter it: in our own lives, the lives of our loved ones, or even the lives of strangers on the other side of the world. The question of why God allows bad things to happen is honest and real.

We don’t pretend to have easy answers, but we trust that God is with us through all of it. God is not indifferent to the suffering in the world. Rather, God willingly joined us by taking on flesh and blood in the person of Jesus. God knows what it feels like to hurt, to cry. When we experience suffering, God comes near to us with grace, mercy, and comfort.

The notion that we have little evidence for the existence of Jesus is oft-repeated but rarely examined critically. The reality is, experts almost unanimously agree that Jesus existed.

A common logical fallacy is that scholarship written by non-Christians is inherently better or more reliable than that written by Christians. Aside from being unfair, it’s also untrue. Some of the top minds in the field are also committed Christians. Like academics of all types, scholars of the New Testament and early Christians history, whether they are Christians or not, adhere to agreed-upon methods shared across the fields of ancient history and classics.

Some will claim that we have no direct evidence for the existence of Jesus. This claim rests upon yet another fallacy that ancient sources written by Christians, such as the four Gospels of the New Testament, don’t “count” as historical sources. The reason given is that, because the Gospels present Jesus as the Son of God, they are too tainted with bias to be useful for discerning actual history.

Again, experts (both Christian and otherwise) do not share this assessment. The fact is, the Gospels are some of our earliest and best evidence for the historical Jesus - though they are far from our only sources. Scholars who study Jesus do not debate whether Jesus existed. Rather, they debate how much we can know about Jesus based on the sources available. Many would say that we can know a decent amount about him.

Further reading:

“Historicity of Jesus”

“Sources for the Historicity of Jesus”

As the world has become more connected, people have been exposed to more and more religious faiths and spiritual traditions. Many people like aspects of certain faiths while disliking others. So they craft a hodge-podge of beliefs. They’re drawn to Jesus’ emphasis on love while also connecting with the reincarnation of Buddhism or Hinduism. Combine this with certain aspects of astrology and New Age beliefs, and voilà, you have a belief system perfectly tailored to fit your needs!

Unfortunately, this often leads to a spirituality of self-fulfillment, in which the primary purpose of belief is to make us happy and successful. Of course, being happy is great! We want people to be happy. But some things are more important than happiness.

It’s the difference between a buffet and a diet plan. At a buffet, you can pick whatever foods you like, but at the end of it, the various dishes in your plate may or may not complement one another, and the total product may or may not be particularly healthy.

Conversely, a religious faith provides a tried-and-true plan for spiritual growth. For all their flaws, religious communities typically push their members to translate their beliefs into action. Through service and mutual aid, religious faith shapes us into persons of love and compassion.

If you’ve ever found any aspects of Christianity interesting, we encourage you to try it out. You need not believe everything we believe in order to participate in our worship, serve with us, or get to know us. The best way to learn if a particular faith tradition is right for you is to try it for yourself.

People are more lonely now than ever. In 1990, one-third of Americans reported having ten or more close friends, while only 3% reported having no close friends. By 2021, only 13% of Americans said they had ten or more close friends, and, more alarming, 12% reported having none.

We need relationships. Without them, we can neither flourish nor thrive.

Unfortunately, not all communities are good. Some communities, while drawing people together around a shared vision, use that commonality to vilify, exclude, and stir up fear. At their worst, churches have done all of these things.

At FCC, we strive to bring people together around the love, inclusion, and world-changing message of Jesus. Whether lending a hand to our neighbors through our food pantry, visiting one another in the hospital, or praying together about our joys and concerns, we walk together through all of life’s ups and downs. In doing so, we witness to the fact that disconnection, divisiveness, and prejudice, though prevalent in our world, will not ultimately endure.

Church is about more than just stirring up spiritual feelings. It helps us use those feelings to their full potential to guide us towards wholeness in our relationships, vocation, and sense of self, and to shape us into people of love, compassion, and justice. Ultimately, that’s the “why” of church.

Drop a pin anywhere on a map of the United States, whether a small town, a suburb, or a large city, and you will find many churches, often bearing odd and confusing names. Reformed. General Baptist. Methodist. Congregationalist. Nazarene. Evangelical Lutheran. What do all these names mean?

Different churches reflect the many differences, great and small, that have emerged over the long history of Christianity. Some churches hold tightly to their differences, others not so much.

But each church is as unique as the people who comprise it. You’ll find great diversity even among churches of the same denomination. Which means the best way to understand an individual church’s identity is to see what that church believes and values. Look at their website. Send an email to the minister. Visit a worship service.

If you’re curious about a particular denomination, honestly, one of the best places to look is Wikipedia. Alternately, most denominations have decent websites with doctrinal and historical information. We invite you to visit the website for our denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

What about nondenominational churches? Many people are drawn to nondenominational churches out of a desire to move past the lines that divide people and focus more fully on Jesus. This is an admirable goal. Many nondenominational, churches help people do this. But others, though nondenominational in terms of their organization and structure, hold to a very narrow set of beliefs with little room for flexibility or disagreement.

Our advice? Don’t write a church off just because it’s part of a denomination. Denominational churches have been among the most active in promoting unity and understanding among Christians. Groups like the National Council of Churches bring Christians of all types together to seek common ground and work together to make the world a better place.

Every religion has adherents who use faith to divide people and stir up violence, bigotry, and hate. But every religion also has many more adherents who seek to do good. This is certainly true of Christianity, both past and present.

Christians went to war in the name of religion in the Medieval Crusades. But Christianity also has a long history of pacifism and involvement in peace movements. Christians perpetrated the massive injustice that was the Transatlantic slave trade, contriving biblical justifications to do so. But it was also Christians that rebelled against the slave trade and pushed for its end.

Unfortunately, many Christians today do and say horrible things. We mourn that. But Christians today also do remarkably good things. And their charitable work isn’t ancillary to their faith—it’s who they are.

Jesus said that we can know a tree by its fruit. In regards to Christianity, you can tell the real from the counterfeit by looking at the fruit of people’s lives. When people are practicing genuine Christian faith, the result will be hearts and lives transformed and a community working together to serve others.

The Bible says that “God is love.” When the church fails to love, the church is failing at its core mission.

Jesus was first and foremost a servant. He came to bring truth, liberation, and justice, and nowhere in his life is this more evident than in his care for the poor and downtrodden. Through his words and actions he announced “the good news of the kingdom of God,” inviting all people to trust him and follow him.

A Christian is simply this: someone who has committed to follow in the way of Jesus. Those who follow Jesus are forgiven of their failures, and can step freely into a life of healing, transformation, and hope, a life which Jesus summarized in the principles “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.“

The Christian life is characterized by a loving relationship with God. As we experience God’s boundless love for us, we, like children under the loving gaze of a parent, grow in love for God and those around us. As we do so, we imitate Jesus, whom Christians believe perfectly embodied what it means to live a life of love.